Short
.Coms Continue to Sizzle! 2-Letter Domain Tops Chart at Over 500K
Followed by a Big Numeric Sale and Nine 3-Letter .Coms

Domain buyers continue to go
long on short domains. A look at our latest weekly all extension
Top 20 Sales Chart makes that crystal clear. The hit parade
was fittingly led by a blockbuster $554,000sale
of an ultra-short 2-letter .com - QE.com. That deal - one of
the four biggest sales reported so
far this year - was jointly handled by eNaming.com's
Tracy Fogarty (the buyer's broker) and Andrew Rosener of MediaOptions.com
(broker for the seller). As has been the case with so many of the
high end .com sales we have seen this year the domain went to a
Chinese buyer.

That was also the case with the #2 domain
- a nice four-digit numeric name - 9595.com - that Rick
Schwartzsold
for $180,000. The Chinese have always loved numeric domains
but that figure appears to be a new high water mark for one
extending to four digits.

The always popular 3-letter .coms then
took center stage - actually almost half of the entire stage - with
nine domains from that category landing on the elite list, led by
the $125,000 sale of #3 Tie.com at Heritage
Auctions (HA). HA accounted for all eight of
those LLL .com sales including #4 BOP.com at $80,000.
HA piled up 12 of the 20 chart entries overall.

By
Ron Jackson

Sedo
rounded out the first five with a four-letter.com - Newy.com
- at a cool $66,000. Only three domains on the entire chart
ran longer than 6 letters.

The only two non .com domains on the Big
Board - both ccTLDs - were also short acronyms. UnicDomains.com
had a very nice Canadian country code sale, getting $30,000 for
#7 AHS.ca and Heritage Auctions secured $20,000 for
#13 (tie) SEO.co.

Michael Mann's DomainMarket.com
helped fuel the .com onslaught by selling #6 Arabesq.com for $34,000.
Mann said he has purchased that domain for just $300 in 2009.

In a related note this week, given the
interest in prices that have been (and are being) paid for
ultra-short .com domains, Leap.com's
George Kirikos, who is a master at finding domain sales
information buried in financial filings, made an interesting
discovery regarding HL.com. International investment bank Houlihan
Lokey (HL) acquired that domain back in 2007 for an undisclosed
price. Fast forward to 2015 where we now have HL filing to go
public, requiring release of an S-1
statement.

In that report Kirikos found a $303,000
entry for a "Domain Name" in the listing of goodwill and
intangible assets. George told us, "That $303,000 is for both
2014 and 2015, demonstrating that they've not been depreciating
it. So, I think with 95% certainty, the $303K was the price used
when the domain name was purchased and that the domain name was
most likely HL.com." Further evidence of that is the entry uses
the phrase "Domain Name" in singular, rather than
the plural "Domain Names".

In 2007 that price would have fallen in
the middle of the range paid for the eight two-letter .com domains
on that
year's Top 100 Chart. They ranged from just $100,000
for VN.com to $500,000 each for AZ.com and LI.com.
While $303,000 is certainly not chump change it would have been a
real bargain for Houlihan Lokey by today's 2-letter .com standards.
Most people would look at 2007's $500,000 ceiling as today's
2-letter .com floor.

Thanks to George for his always
outstanding spadework. Now back to how the sales leaders stacked up for the
week ending Sunday, July 19:

HealthInsurance Services, Inc

eHealthInsurance Services, Inc

eHealthInsurance Services, Inc

The DN Journal Top 20Highest
Reported Domain Sales - Mon. July 13,2015 - Sun. July 19,
2015(Foreign
currency to U.S. Dollar Conversions Based on Rates in
Effect July 22, 2015)

Domain

Sold For

Where
Sold

1.

QE.com

$554,000

eNaming/MediaOptions

2.

9595.com

$180,000

Pvt Sale

3.

Tie.com

$125,000

Heritage Auctions

4.

BOP.com

$80,000

Heritage Auctions

5.

Newy.com

$66,000

Sedo

6.

Arabesq.com

$34,000

DomainMarket

7.

AHS.ca

$30,000

UnicDomains

8.

Donna.com

$24,000

Heritage Auctions

9.

IGL.com

$23,000

Heritage Auctions

10.

Philae.com

$22,000

Sedo

11.
tie

MovieQuotes.com

$20,500

Sedo

11.
tie

VapeClub.com

$20,500

Sedo

13.
tie

BVF.com

$20,000

Heritage Auctions

13.
tie

Frisco.com

$20,000

Heritage Auctions

13.
tie

SEO.co

$20,000

Heritage Auctions

16.

MJU.com

$19,000

Heritage Auctions

17.

IXA.com

$18,000

Heritage Auctions

18.

VMR.com

$17,000

Heritage Auctions

19.

FIQ.com

$16,500

Heritage Auctions

20.

GXM.com

$15,000

Heritage Auctions

Keep in mind that these are the highest
value cash only sales that have been reported to us in the
past week. This column is meant to be an educational tool,
not a complete list documenting ALL high
value domain sales. Such a list is impossible to produce
because many sales are kept private at the insistence of
buyers, sellers or both. Our procedure for verifying the
accuracy of domain sales reports is available here.

FootMercato.com fetched $6,540, TackleWorld.com
went for $6,000 and MaderaGroup.com made $5,500. Destur.com
drew $5,450, Envios.com added $5,449, VRSales.com
kicked in $4,905 and SalonWholesale.com sold for $4,158.

Sedo had 24 more four-figure .com sales ranging
from $2,000 to $3,975 that are listed in the table
below:

Additional
Sedo .com Sales Between $2,000 - $3,975

smooz.com

$3,975

sinplus.com

$2,500

my-brand.com

$3,815

etnagroup.com

$2,295

slotstorm.com

$3,815

wandatour.com

$2,244

vytek.com

$3,679

longstayhotels.com

$2,200

plandecampagne.com

$3,270

foot-anglais.com

$2,180

guomaowang.com

$3,200

cheap-hotel.com

$2,179

epado.com

$3,000

dinosaursforkids.com

$2,126

microh.com

$3,000

ovah.com

$2,100

tigerbites.com

$3,000

shimokita.com

$2,095

sparkanalytics.com

$2,900

snap4u.com

$2,000

messtronik.com

$2,725

suffolkpd.com

$2,000

hitcell.com

$2,695

typoh.com

$2,000

Country
Codes

AHS.ca set the pace for the
ccTLDs this week. That $30,000 sale by UnicDomains is the
biggest Canadian country code sale reported so far this year and
also the biggest 3-letter sale in any ccTLD. It
also ranks among the 15 biggest country code sales of any kind thus
far in 2015 (the ccTLD YTD Top 100 is the second
chart on the page linked to).

The $20,000 sale of SEO.co at
Heritage Auctions (like AHS.ca, a name that made the all
extension Top 20 chart you saw earlier) fills the #2 slot on our latest weekly Country Code Top 20 Chart.
A pair of $8,175 sales at Sedo followed with Etichetta.it
and Stier.de each drawing that amount. Sedo rounded
out the first five with TimeShare.co.uk at $7,800.

Germany's .de won the extension race with
seven chart entries, followed by .co with four. No other
TLD had more than one place on the leader board. Here is how the
country code leaders stacked up for the week ending Sunday, July
19:

Country
Code Top 20 ChartHighest Reported
Domain Sales - Mon. July 13, 2015 - Sun. July 19, 2015(Foreign
currency to U.S. Dollar Conversions Based on Rates in Effect
July 22, 2015)

It was slow going for the non .com gTLDs though
they did get a nice five-figure sale in QV.net, a name
that went for $15,000 at Heritage Auctions. No others
reached that range though the #2 domain on our latest Non
.Com gTLD Top Sales Chart came close with Sedo selling UPL.org
for $9,888.

Still only ten sales total were reported for the
entire category with Sedo booking all but one of those. They
rounded out the first five with UTZ.org ($7,500), JH.biz
($1,638) and UBX.info ($1,635).

Here's how all of the Non .Com gTLD leaders
stacked up for the week ending Sunday, July 19: